Outskirts Overland Podcast
Welcome to the Outskirts Overland Podcast, your go-to source for all things overlanding! Hosted by a seasoned adventurer with over 15 years of experience, this podcast offers a genuine and down-to-earth exploration of the overlanding lifestyle. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting out, join us as we delve into the essentials of gear and equipment, share captivating stories from the road, and provide practical tips for your next adventure. Tune in for insightful interviews, expert advice, and a community of like-minded explorers who share a passion for discovering the world beyond the beaten path. Get ready to fuel your wanderlust and embark on unforgettable journeys with the Outskirts Overland Podcast!
Outskirts Overland Podcast
The Quiet Storm Approaching: Gear Prices, Supply Chains, and What You Should Know
Gear maintenance might not be the sexiest topic in overlanding, but it's often what separates a great adventure from a disaster. Charlie dives into zipper maintenance after a listener pointed out this overlooked aspect of gear care. Beyond the expected recommendation of Gear Aid's specialized products, Charlie shares an ingenious field hack that could save your trip—using a heated crayon as emergency zipper lubricant. Who knew those Crayolas could pull double duty in your pack?
Quality matters tremendously in the backcountry, and Charlie doesn't mince words about zippers: "There's no other zipper that you want to be messing with than YKK." This Japanese standard-bearer represents the difference between reliability and frustration when you're miles from nowhere. Similarly, his strong recommendation for E-rated (10-ply) tires highlights the importance of durability over weight savings for serious overlanders.
A conversation with a tire industry friend led to a pragmatic warning about potential price increases starting May 1st, particularly affecting imported overlanding equipment. Without venturing into political territory, Charlie simply advises that if you're planning purchases in the near future, accelerating your timeline might save significant money. This applies especially to tires and specialized gear sourced internationally—from Australian snorkels to Japanese vehicle components.
The episode concludes with a fascinating observation about overlanding culture: we recognize each other's vehicles far more readily than faces. This creates an odd community dynamic where your rig becomes your identity. Charlie encourages more personal visibility, reminding us that beyond the impressive builds and gear collections, it's the human connections that make this community special. Want to put a face to the voice? Check out the Outskirts Overland YouTube channel and get to know the person behind the podcast.
The hey guys. Good morning. It's uh charlie, here with outskirts overland. Today is tuesday the 15th and it's national laundry day, so that's kind of a downer. It's kind of not not what I was looking for. You know I hate laundry, by the way, guys, like it's my least favorite thing in the world to do is laundry folded anyways. Uh, so yeah, weird.
Speaker 1:Today I got a message. Well, I got a message yesterday from a listener and they said hey, what do you do to maintain zippers? You talk about maintaining a lot of gear but you haven't touched on zippers. I'm sure you have a solution. And I said, yeah, no for sure. So Gear Aid, who I've mentioned before, that does patches, like tent patches. They make a zipper cleaner with like a brush. So you squeeze it and brush it for a zipper cleaner and they make a zipper lube as well. So that's how I maintain zippers.
Speaker 1:But in a pinch, if you need some help with a zipper in a pinch, I carry a crayon with me and crayons are high in wax and I torch the crayon and rub it over the like the catch spot in a big. Absolutely, take the with you and that cleaner with you. Quite frankly, but if you're somebody that is going out in a day and you can't get that cleaner and stuff to your house quick enough. Uh, crayon, a hot like taking up legitimate, like crayola crayon. I mean you're thinking what I'm thinking? You heat it up and it kind of gets turns into like a, it's a wax, so it's like a candle, and then you just rub the crayon over your zipper and it'll help lubricate that, that tight spot or that sand that's in there. So your zipper will work for you. So I thought I would cover that like immediately because I do. I do cover you because I do cover maintenance a lot.
Speaker 1:And the topic yesterday was even like, hey, let's get gear that we can fix versus and I have some really expensive pieces of gear that if they break they're kind of just done. That sucks, kind of that sucks. God. You know, if I had somebody that's, I wouldn't. I guess I'd consider myself a DIY or. But like I buy stuff, I don't DIY, build everything, but I definitely DIY, maintain it all, and so, yeah, that's, that's what I do with zippers. I bet his shoes with zippers across the, across the freaking spectrum of whatever you could zip.
Speaker 1:One thing I do recommend is when you're looking for outdoor gear. Specifically, ykk zippers are by far the best zippers. You want YKK zippers, period. There's no other zipper that you want to be messing with than YKK. So if you're looking at two products and they're zippered products and one has YKK zipper, it will usually say it that's going to be the better product for you. If you get tent covers, that's going to be the better product for you. If you get tent covers like 23 zeros tent cover zips you want to make sure it has YKK zippers. Cheap zippers tend to fail more frequently or rip or sometimes they won't catch right, they won't go in each other, right. So anyways, you want YKK zippers.
Speaker 1:The last thing I'm going to talk about today is tires. I was talking to my buddy Tyson he works in the tire industry yesterday, um, and we were talking about he personally he's looking to get some tires and he was talking about how, for whatever reason, that it's kind of like stuff's not in stock right now, like tires are kind of hard to get and I don't know what that's about. But yeah, we were going back and forth. You know, I recommend E-rated tires. That's a 10-ply tire. That's what I recommend.
Speaker 1:If you guys care enough to care what I think I recommend 10-plies. They are way heavier but they do provide a lot of puncture resistance and cut resistance on the sidewall. The sidewall is usually 3-ply. But he was looking and he was like man, I just can't find e-rated ones. And so he's like what about c? Well, c is six ply, so go c, d, e I mean like the alphabet right, but it goes six by like 10 ply. He is 10, and d, is is eight and c is six, maybe lighter and stuff.
Speaker 1:But I was like man, I just don't know. But yeah, we're going back and forth and I was like. I was like you know, I bet, come may 1st, when the stuff hits, I bet tires. I don't know where we get all our rubber from, but I bet that has something to do with the. I bet that has something to do with it. So I'm not bringing that up to your guys attention to be political or anything but like, if you all that stuff starts may 1st. So so if you, maybe we're in the market, I'm not saying now's the best time to be looking at tires, but if you're like I'm just saying after May 1st it might not be a good time.
Speaker 1:I don't know Every email I've gotten about prices increasing. They all take effect May 1st and I don't really know what all that's gonna affect. And there's a lot of stuff you can wait on. Tires just isn't one of them. So I'd uh, I don't know what that looks like. I mean, nobody knows what that looks like. Let's be realistic here. Nobody knows what that looks like, but I did.
Speaker 1:Just just having a conversation yesterday with him was like damn, that's yeah that. Who knows what that's gonna do, because I do, uh, as as overlanding is, you know some equipment I get from canada. I've gotten some stuff from australia. You know I have an importer um, excuse me, my intake on my truck, my snorkel's from Australia, built, built, built, sent from Australia. I don't know that this stuff like that's going to be feasible to do after this all I don't know what importer fees will be Like. If you wanted to get I'm a car guy, so if you wanted, like an R34 Skyline which you can just now get, finally, the us imported, I bet. Just import fees are through the freaking roof too. I don't know what this is. I mean, I know it's supposed to be on like goods and trade, but imports go through the freaking roof too. So people import you know right hand drive diesel, land cruisers, stuff like that, some of those parts that you have to order from get from toyota or lexus or honda and they've got to come from japan. Like I don't even know what that's going to do to all that stuff, so I'm only bringing it up like I don't know. I don't know what it's going to do.
Speaker 1:But if you've got the money to get your spares now like spare things that typically break If you've got the money to get your stuff in order, it might it's not going to I hate saying the word save you money. It's not going to save you any money. You're still spending money. You might just not spend as much as you will here in the next few months. It's not something you need for like a year. I mean you could definitely. You could definitely let it play out and see where you're at then, but if it's something you think you're going to need soon, you may want to pay attention to just have it in your mind that this current climate might skyrocket yourself. Maybe not skyrocket, but it might put a decent increase on what it costs, tires being the first thing that brought it to mind, so I figured I would talk about it because it hasn't been something. It hasn't been something that I've.
Speaker 1:I'm not looking for anything currently, so, and if you're part of places, newsletters and whatever discounts, you give me your email, whatever. You guys are all getting these emails too, like May 1st, unfortunately, xyz, and then the companies that produce the products in America are now offering discounts even so. But you know, I don't know Some stuff. I, yeah, I don't know. You don't make your own decisions with what you do, with what you do, but it it might be reasonable to at least be looking at stuff that you think might be foreign produced products, just because I don't know that the stuff's gonna have to be in place. These companies may start imposing price increases for it pending to be in place. So yeah, I just really don't know.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, michael Pruitt with Knives of Valor commented he sent a voicemail over to Benji's podcast. We found over there and was talking about how he thinks. And I talked about this on my podcast with Benji, but I know not all of you guys listen to my segment that me and Benji do together Opinionated but I talked about me and him talked about how in you know, in this space, like our vehicles are more recognizable than our faces, and Michael commented on that and said, yeah, it'd be really nice to see people's faces, because he said, not even from his side being recognized, like even when he meets people, he may not know who he's talking to. So I just think that's so crazy. In this space it's more of a car space than it is an equipment space, than it is a personal space Overlanding. But I'm an advocate of it.
Speaker 1:Even now, put up pictures of who you are, because the idea is to be communal, to be a community, and nobody knows what anybody looks like. We only know what their vehicles look like. So we can see a vehicle and be like, oh, that's such and such, but if such and such isn't at the vehicle, like we're never, I guess we're going to know they're there, but we don't even know who or what they look like. And that's kind of an odd concept, like an extremely weird thing, that we can recognize somebody's car and that that's associated with their instagram handle, but not even know what they look like. You know that's crazy and I, I'm hey guys, I'm, I'm uh, you know I'm guilty of this as well, so I've been working on that to try and make myself more available. But again, if you guys watch the I mean you guys see me every freaking day then you know what I look like. But again, the stream's not the most watched, but anybody that listens on podcast, you can go to my YouTube page, asker's Overland, and go to streams, click streams or live and you'll see it all. Whatever 60 of these things. So just I mean, yeah, go check it out, you'll see what I look like. That's all it is, it's me, it's rarely anything else. So, anyways, that's about that. I mean, that's it for today.
Speaker 1:A couple quick topics, just some thoughts. You know, as the, as these costs get imposed on these foreign countries from the US and you know, just, I know I have international listeners to you. I mean I'm assuming this is going to affect everybody. I mean it will affect everybody. So, yeah, just keep an eye out. You know I'm pro helping everybody out. So like I have no opinion of of them being put in place or not, or what I mean I'm not in that. I I do a. You know I have a job, I do a podcast. I'm a big enough deal to have an opinion that matters. So just, whatever, I just want you guys and I spend a bunch of extra money.
Speaker 1:If, if you're looking, you know, if you're like, oh, april or May, I would April, I would, april, I would. Just that's all I would. That's all I'm trying to get across. If you're that close, now might be a better time than in two weeks from now. That's all so, potentially so. That's all I got for you guys today. Don't forget, it's National Laundry Day and I'll catch you guys tomorrow, on Wednesday. Have a good one Later.
